Caveman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A caveman is a popular stylized characterization of how early humans or hominids may have looked and behaved. The term is sometimes used colloquially to refer to Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, or Homo sapiens of the Paleolithic era.
The term has been discouraged for its inaccuracy, as it mostly refers to misconceptions of early humans. In the past, many people shared the view of the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes that the life of a human being without civilization was "...solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short". The modern scientific perception of prehistoric lifestyle is now that of the hunter-gatherer.
Cavemen are usually portrayed as being hairy, clothed in animal skins, armed with bone or wood clubs, unintelligent, and aggressive. Stereotypical depictions of cavemen tend to show them using clubs to knock out potential mates, then carrying or dragging her by the hair to his cave. They are often shown as living contemporaneously with dinosaurs, a situation totally contradicted by archaeological and paleontological evidence which shows that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, at which time the only mammals were small, furry, and four-footed. Furthermore, cavemen are often shown as living in caves; but this stemmed from the ritual paintings found in caves: it is more probable that the caves were religious gathering places and not the actual dwellings of the supposed 'cavemen'.
The comic strips B.C. and Alley Oop and the 1960s American animated television series The Flintstones portray cavemen. Cavemen are also often seen in advertising, including advertisements for Minute Maid. More recently, GEICO has launched a series of television commercials & attempts at viral marketing where GEICO announcers are repeatedly denounced by modern cavemen for perpetrating a stereotype of unintelligent, backward cavemen.
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Depictions of the Paleolithic in the media
Caveman characters
- Captain Caveman
- The Flintstones
- Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, a Saturday Night Live sketch
- Offended Caveman, from GEICO advertising campaign
- Yahoo in Gulliver's Travels
- J. P. Manoux, plays Curtis the Caveman on the Disney show "Phil of the Future"
- Bob from Prometheus and Bob on KaBlam! on Nickelodeon
- Cave Guy, a villain on Freakazoid
Caveman movies
- Three Ages, 1923
- One Million Years B.C., 1966
- Caveman, 1981
- Quest for Fire, 1981
- Luggage of the Gods, 1983
- The Clan of the Cave Bear, 1986
- Encino Man, 1993
- Bikini Cavegirl, 2004
Caveman novels
- Earth's Children series
- The Clan of the Cave Bear 1980
- The Valley of Horses 1982
- The Mammoth Hunters 1985
- The Plains of Passage 1990
- The Shelters of Stone 2002
See Also
External links
- Online community of people who strive to emulate the diet and fitness of cavemen
- http://cavemanscrib.com Geico's attempt at viral marketing